Image expert Joanna Gaudoin, founder of Inside Out image consultancy, shares her guidance for boosting your personal image:

How much thought do you give your image? In the busyness of everyday life, there’s a real shortage of time. Many women say to me they used to think about it more – when they were younger, before the children…

Personal image is really important in professional life, it affects if people engage with you and importantly how. It can be the difference between getting a promotion or not! It’s not just the effect on others either. It’s about how we feel about ourselves, when we look and feel good; we have a greater sense of self-worth which shines through. Others respond better which helps us perform better; it is the ‘cycle of success’.

In this short article, my aim is to give you 6 tips as some food for thought to boost your personal image, your confidence included. They are deliberately meant to be tips that don’t take lots of investigation; there may not be time for that!

As a starting point, the three areas that affect your image are appearance, body language and voice, these tips will touch on all three.

1. Wear clothes and accessories that make you feel good; it will show through on the outside. I very often decide the shoes or necklace I really want to wear and build my outfit around that.

2. Include accent colour in your outfit (not just black, navy, grey, brown and white), it will lift you inside and out. Think about the tone too, the last thing you want is to look drained and older than your years.

3. Select the right clothing shape for you. Shapeless is never flattering. I understand sometimes we might feel a bit weightier so select a bigger size or something with less shape but it really will make you look larger and shapeless

4. Think about where your eye goes when you look at yourself and consider if you are happy with someone else’s eye going there too!

5. Try to make your body language open, take up space! This will engage people and help you look more confident. At all costs, avoid making yourself look smaller. Think about the position of your feet and arms, and your posture of course!

6. Think about the pace and pitch of your voice. It is scientifically proven that men don’t hear high voices well. Higher voice pitches also lack gravitas, so think about lowering your pitch and speaking in a calm and empathetic tone to communicate credibility.

I hope these provide some points to consider and to get you thinking about what you communicate to others and how you can feel more confident about your personal image. If you’d like more food for thought, just sign up for my free 6 part guide ‘Boost Your Personal Impact’ by visiting insideoutimage.co.uk/personal-impact.

Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments you have.

Joanna Gaudoin helps women and organisations achieve professional success by working with them on their image and impact. Prior to establishing Inside Out, Joanna Gaudoin spent nearly 10 years in marketing and consultancy. She now works with women one-to-one, as well as running client events and workshops across all areas of image and impact, including networking and online personal image. Visit: insideoutimage.co.uk